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Gubba gubba hey, it's Jonathan Boulet

Craig Mathieson

“I look back fondly over the past five years,” says singer-songwriter Jonathan Boulet, “but when it’s time to move on, it’s time to move on.”

The one-time alternative-pop prodigy is true to his word: Boulet’s third album, Gubba, is an abrupt departure from the electronic-tinged folk celebration of his 2009 self-titled debut and 2012’s We Keep the Beat, Found the Sound, See the Need, Start the Heart. Recorded in Berlin, although Boulet ascribes little influence to the city, the album is a collision of overdriven guitars, 1960s reverb, biker rock grooves, and buried, distorted vocals.

“I’ve always been a fan of trying to surprise people or get a reaction out of them,” Boulet explains. “I don’t feel that my musical ventures are unpredictable, but there are lots of roads you can take and sometimes it’s easier to take one road over another and sometimes you’re presented with a new road you haven’t had access to, and that’s definitely more inviting.”

A one-time skateboarder and bedroom musician from Sydney’s north-west suburbs, 26-year-old Boulet is based in London, with Gubba getting a British release this month as he tours Australia. He’ll be fronting a three-piece band – a drummer and two electric guitarists – that will be supplying the necessary “face-melting” guitar sounds to duplicate his new studio aesthetic and quite probably dislodge some of the following Boulet’s built via previous strong airplay.

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Gubba bears close relation to one of Boulet’s side projects, the “power violence” band Snakeface, so it’s not a completely unexpected development for him to put aside the celebratory for the seemingly crazed. But the more you listen to Gubba, the more it makes sense, with coiled, catchy riffs standing out from the cacophonous ambience.

He describes these songs as being the material that would often emerge at the end of a jam session, when the work for the day had been done. What Boulet doesn’t want is for people to think it’s simply a put on being perpetrated on unassuming listeners.

“It’s not 100 per cent a joke, but it spawns from not being too serious. It’s nice to not feel like you’re angry; you can have fun and still be extreme,” he says. “If you label it as sarcastic, it loses its effect; you won’t get the reaction. If someone calls it a joke, that’s hilarious to me because then the joke’s on them.”

Part of the uncertain perception stems from the album’s lyrical pose, where Boulet mocks – and sometimes plays – the boorish young dude on tracks such as You’re A Man, Strut King, and High Five Guy. It’s not entirely surprising that Boulet parted ways with the label, the increasingly electronic-based Modular (The Presets, Cut Copy), which signed him as a 19-year-old.

“The problem was that my main dudes listened to heavier stuff and they liked this, but they all left the company in the time I was making these demos so I didn’t have anyone on my side,” Boulet recalls. “A lot of people at Modular are more into dance music, so it wasn’t that surprising they weren’t into it."

Would “weren’t into it” be an understatement? Boulet laughs.

“They would have been like, ‘What the f--- is this?’" he admits.

And he’s happy with that. Gubba clears the decks for Boulet, taking him back from the brink of repeating himself. That, he believes, would have been unforgivable.

“It’s really quite satisfying when people react, whether it’s good or bad,” he says. “Now I have this new wave of motivation and energy.”

Jonathan Boulet plays the Northcote Social Club on Friday, August 15; and Sydney's Goodgod Small Club on Thursday, August 21. Gubba is out now on Popfrenzy Records